The Hunger Games series prequel Sunrise on the Reaping has barely begun production, but Lionsgate is keeping the project in the headlines by announcing the cast members who will take on lead roles.

Lionsgate announced on Thursday that McKenna Grace will play Maysilee Donner, who in the book is one of the tributes from District 12 alongside protagonist Haymitch Abernathy.

As revealed yesterday, Haymitch, who was played by Woody Harrelson in the four Hunger Games films, will be played by newcomer Joseph Zada.

Zada and Grace join Whitney Peak, who will play Haymitch’s girlfriend Lenore Dove Baird.

The novel Sunrise on the Reaping, released in 2025, follows author Suzanne Collins’ first prequel, 2020’s The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, which took place 40 years before Reaping. Songbirds was made into a 2023 film and starred Rachel Zegler as District 12 winner Lucy Gray Baird and Tom Blyth as a young Coriolanus Snow, before he became president.

Francis Lawrence, who has helmed every installment of the franchise since 2012’s Catching Fire, will direct from a screenplay adaptation by Billy Ray.

The Sunrise on the Reaping movie will play theaters beginning on November 20th, 2026.